


Swamps

by Evadiva



Category: Original Work
Genre: Flashbacks, Im bad at this, LOTS of flying fish, Post Nuclear War, first oc story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-07
Updated: 2018-10-07
Packaged: 2019-07-27 18:55:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16225244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Evadiva/pseuds/Evadiva
Summary: 3 lil cinnamon rollsBOOMnuclear bombFlashbackMurderSwampsGOoD lUcK REAdIng thIS QuaIliTy TraSH





	Swamps

     Tucker, Z, and Alice braced themselves as they realized what was happening. They had gathered at their usual place.

   Two years ago that day a 13 year old boy named Tucker was walking to his new school. It took an hour. The bus couldn’t come so far to his house, and his parents had to work, so he was left waking up at five in the morning, swiftly grabbing his backpack, green jacket and slipping into his muddy rain boots. He popped a pop tart into his jaw and walked down the stoop. Of course, foggy and wet outside like always.

His family and him used to live in Pennsylvania, but scince the news of the war spreading across America reached his parents, they thought it would be best to go to the one place where the world didn’t have it out for, Ireland. And so like many others from Pennsylvania, they left.

So here was little Tucker, trudging through the foliage around the path to school. He would find all sorts of fun things like worms, bugs, rare plants, soft leaves, pretty flowers, toads, Moss, snakes, night crawlers, but the most fun things to find where wild roses and clovers. Tucker always thought wild plants like rose petals and heart shaped leaves where better than pop tarts.

At the same time, Alice, a twelve year old home schooled girl with white hair was reading in her favorite place. Up high in the crook of two branches hovering over a little pond.

Tucker was chasing a toad that had managed to escape his grip. He followed it over a log, under a few branches, through some trees and over some dirty leaves that rustled when he jogged past. All the way until they came to a clearing where the toad hopped into a puddle.

Tucker looked up and realized the body of water was more than a puddle. Much more.

Right then a book fell from the tree above him. It landed right in front of his muddy boots with a PLOP right into the mud. “Crap”, he heard a whisper from the tree.

“Um... s-sorry” Alice quietly stuttered.

“It’s fine, I didn’t know anyone lived around here.”

Tucker picked up the muddy book and looked inside, seeing how much damage had been done. The first half of the pages were soaking and brown, the second half still looking brand new. He brushed some of the muck of the cover and recognized some of the numbers to be Roman numerals, along with some words he thought to be French.

“No one does. I came from there-“ Alice pointed down a long winding path that reached to the other side of the pond to a dry area where a silver bike layed silently, motionless.

“What’s this book?” Tucker inquired.

“It’s just something I picked up from a pile of my moms failed novels. I don’t know what it’s called, I can’t read French. But I know some Greek... I thought I could decifer some of the words. It’s ok, I can’t. The book means nothing to me or my mom. She was going to throw it away anyway.”

“Your mom in an author?” Tucker had many questions, he tried to only speak the best of them.

Alice shuffled a bit in her spot, deciding her next few words.

“My mom is a teacher, and you are a stranger. I would prefer if you left now.”

But Tucker was stubborn, so he didn’t leave. He stayed and ping-ponged questions with Alice, her attempts at making him get lost failed.

“My name is Tucker. You?”

“Alice, now go away.”

“But I am still a stranger? You know my name. Don’t you have to be at school?”

“It’s is none of your business, but I am homeschooled.”

Just then Tucker realized why he was even there. He jolted his sleeve up and glanced at his watch.

“Shit.”

Tucker knew that even if he got to school in the next five minutes, which was impossible, he would still be very late.

Alice staffed at Tucker’s pale face, the color had drained the second he lifted his sleeve.

“You skipping school then?” Alice was genuinely concerned.

Tucker knew he would get in huge trouble if he walked into the school so late, so he just slumped over, dropped his backpack, and let his legs give way to the heavy weight of his body.

PLOP once again, and Tucker crossed his legs and answered. No use in going now anyway.

“Yup”

A couple hours past, Alice and Tucker attacking each other with questions. Tucker traced small doodles in the mud on in front of him with the one finger his gloves didn’t cover because of a gaping hole. Alice took back the book and ripped out each muddy page, folded them into little swans.

At exactly twelve o’clock that afternoon, a girl with pitch black hair and a sweatshirt with little skulls on it came from the same trail Alice had. Alice and Tucker shared a look of confusion and anxiousness when she popped a pocket knife out of her ripped skinny jeans.

“Get the hell outta my spot you idiots. This is where I carve my designs, and you are sitting right on them brat.”

This is Z, she is a fourteen year old girl from Florida. Her family moved here for the same reason Tucker did. She isn’t naturally mean, but her family life is kind of screwed up so you can’t really blame her.

Z lifted her head to where Alice was perched. Alice then resentfully shot back a quite unexpected response.

“I don’t give a crap if you where the queen of England, unless you OWN this tree, or you where the one that planted it, I’m not leaving from this branch. You are probably just some middle school dropout who thinks the world belongs to her just because she is edgy. Well listen to me honey. It really doesn’t, and you have no right to call us names.”

“I like you.” Z gave a smirk. She sat on a log beside Tucker and jabbed her knife into the cold, brittle bark.

One year later they where all best friends, and made a spot they could all go, right next to the tree. Tucker grabbed a shovel, Alice got some buckets, and Z stole some wood from the walls of an old abondoned shed about half a mile west.

They started digging. Scooping. Digging. Scooping. Until they had reached about 20 feet into the side of the mucky pond. They made a cleverly hidden tunnel, that was connected to the cave they made deep under the surface, where they could see the roots of trees and worms where everywhere. The place was already filled with air when they found it.

They strung pretty colored shards of glass from the roots and put fairy lights into the wood walls after they had to use flashlights to see. Z had stuck the wood into the dirt walls and floor.

Tucker found all the leaches and put them away into a log far from the spot so Alice when he quickly learned she didn’t care for them. By ‘didn’t care for them’, I mean screamed at the top of her lungs whenever she saw one. There where plenty.

Alice placed all the creatures she found in jars and set them in her corner of the cave, along with lots of papers, books, and maps she already owned.

Z, in her corner, had many strange dolls and sewing supplies. She had randomly separated buttons, peices of fabric, and clay faces. She also hung a peculiar assortment of kitchen knifes above it all.

Tucker’s corner was simple. He had lots of plants, and he painted his wall. He also had four gas masks because he thought they looked cool.

After all this they had placed blankets and pillows in the fourth corner, where they could rest, or read.

They had to carry everything down in plastic bags so they wouldn’t get dirty.

Now back to where we started. Tucker (now nicknamed swamps) and Alice (now nicknamed bunny) were both reading on the floor, and Z was poking a needle and thread through a button and a piece of fabric, mending them together.

Suddenly, they heard a muffled scream. Bunny glanced over to Z’s knifes that were shaking and klinking together. Swamps looked over to Bunny’s jars of creatures, some of them with fish had the water shaking.

Loud but muffled ZOOMS and WEEZ came from above. Z walked over to the cave entrance and looked outside. She saw a plane in the sky and animals running from the East.

She realized what was happening.

“GUYS WE ARE GOING TO DIIIIIIEEEEE THERE ARE PLANES THEY HAVE BOMBS WHAT DO WE DO IM NOT JOKING OMFG”

Z started hyperventilating. Bunny grabbed the gas masks and gave one to each Z and Swamps.

They strapped them on, pushed the bookshelves in front of the opening and Z dug her knives into the ground so they couldn’t move. Bunny turned her bookshelf around and leaned on it so the jars wouldn’t break and the shelf couldn’t fall.

They shut their eyes. A little toad hopped outside on the tree.

SCREAM  
CRASH  
BOOM

“What about mom?”


End file.
